The caramelized onions are the most time-intensive part of this recipe. But if you slice them first and start them cooking first thing, they can cook down while you gather and prep the rest of your ingredients.

Pumpkin and Caramelized Onion Frittata

Add butter to an 8 inch non-stick frying pan or iron skillet over low heat until butter melts. Add onions and cook, stirring occasionally for 10-20 minutes or until onions are soft, golden brown, and caramelized.

Meanwhile, whisk eggs, milk or cream, and pureed pumpkin together in a medium bowl until combined. Season with salt and cracked pepper.

Preheat your broiler element.

Pour egg mixture over caramelized onions in hot pan and sprinkle with cheese and chopped sage.

Cook the frittata for 5-6 minutes or until almost set. The center will be set and the sides will be brown and crispy, and tiny bubbles will break through the surface of the wet egg. (if your frittata is an inch or taller, consider covering with a lid for this part to hasten the setting).

To finish cooking, place the frittata under the preheated broiler for 1-2 minutes or until the cheese on top begins to brown and the frittats is set.

Cut into wedges or squares and serve with hot buttered toast and perhaps a chutney. Serves about 4.

Soup is a grand thing because it’s usually very simple, requires a few modifications on a basic formula, and demands only some chopping and (usually) one pot. This recipe is frighteningly easy. I whipped it together in about a half hour before running out the door to a play. The daikon radish, the star of the show, mellows significantly and takes on a savory, buttery flavor in the soup.

One of the things this recipe calls for is searing the meat before-hand and using the deglazed pan drippings to build a base for the soup stock. I prefer this method because it helps caramelize the fat and it adds a nice overall depth to the soup. Make sure to use a very sturdy, very hot pan, and resist the urge to mess with it while it's searing.

Thinly-sliced, rare beef and scallions are the perfect garnish for the spicy, savory soup.

Rub both sides of the steak with canola oil and season with salt and pepper. Heat a cast-iron skillet or other heavy-weight, steel (NOT non-stick) pan over medium-high heat until smoking. Add the steak and DON’T touch it for at least 90 seconds. Sear until the heat forms a brown, caramelized crust on one side. Flip the steak and sear on the other side for 1-2 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside on a cooking rack to rest.

Deglaze the plan by adding mirin (if using) and a few TBS beef broth. Use a spatula to scrape up any crusty bits from the pan and heat for a minute or two until reduced slightly.

Peel daikon radish and cut into inch-long pieces. Slice each daikon piece lengthwise into 1/8 inch slices. You can also slice the daikon into rounds if you prefer. Add daikon slices to the soup pot and cook over medium heat 10-15 minutes or until diakon is tender when pierced.

After steak has rested, use a sharp, heavy knife to slice against the grain into extremely thin strips. Steak should still be quite raw on the inside but will cook in the bowl with the hot soup.

Prepare bowls of soup by filling with rice or cooked rice noodles. Top with strips of steak to your liking. Ladle hot radish soup into bowls and top with sliced green onions. Devour with soup-spoons and chopsticks for an authentic experience.

A proper sear will actually form a crust on the cut of meat. The secret is high heat and only a tiny amount of fat.

There’s a great Pan-Asian place just off-campus where I love grabbing a quick lunch during the workweek. They make the best fresh basil rolls around, and they’re just over 2 bucks. That’s not half bad for a light lunch. I’d never attempted to make my own fresh rolls, believing them to be firmly in the realm of “foods that just aren’t worth it.”

To my surprise, spring rolls are easy to assemble, and you can fill them with practically anything. Try adding any type of fresh greens or herbs, shredded vegetables, apples, slaws, leftover meats, etc. You can buy the spring roll skins at both Kroger and Natural Grocer here in Denton, they usually cost between $2-4 per package, and they keep for a very long time.

My daughter prefers a simple roll: red pepper, greens, and sometimes baked tofu. If I’m being honest, the only thing that really matters is the red pepper and making sure there’s plenty of peanut sauce for dipping. These rolls don’t last long, and you MUST wrap them up airtight to store them in the fridge, otherwise the skins dry out. I wrap them in plastic wrap to keep them fresh and they go great in a kid’s packed lunch.

Cut tofu into half-inch slices and arrange in a single layer on top of a paper towel covered cutting board. Put more paper towels on top and another cutting board. Place something heavy on top to weigh it down. This helps get rid of some of the moisture in the tofu so it cooks quicker.

Preheat oven to 400° F. Arrange marinated tofu on a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake for 40 minutes, flipping tofu ever 10 minutes so it cooks evenly. Remove from the oven and set aside to cook.

For Fresh Rolls

Fill a large mixing boll with warm water. Arrange the fresh roll fillings on a cutting board and make sure you have a clean working surface. The rolling part goes quite fast, so you want everything to be handy.

Soak a fresh roll skin in the bowl of warm water for 15-25 seconds, or until it loses most of it’s stiffness. You still want it to have the strength of wet fabric, though, so don’t let it sit too long or it will tear when you’re rolling.

Remove the moist skin to your working surface and quickly arrange your toppings toward the bottom, as if your were filling a burrito. I find 2 strips of baked tofu, 3 or 4 red pepper slices, and a small bunch of microgreens is plenty.

Roll and wrap the ingredients inside the skin, tucking in the edges as you roll, like you would a burrito. Set the finished rolls to the side while you make more!

Serve immediately with peanut sauce.

For Peanut Sauce

Combine all ingredients except warm water in a mixing bowl.

Slowly whisk in the warm water until all ingredients are incorporated together and the sauce thins to the consistency of gravy.

I invited a friend over for dinner the other night before I’d planned out the menu. We got back to my house at the end of a long day and I had a brief panic attack trying to figure out what I was going to feed myself, my child, and our guest. Luckily, I had been gifted a bag full of goodies from the Coppell Farmer’s Market and had quite a bit to work with, including a number of lovely root vegetables and some ground meats. I posted a different cottage pie recipe using bison last year, but I find this recipe to be a vast improvement.

The farmer’s market in winter is the best place to gather all the goodies for a cottage pie. A cottage pie recipe is less of a rulebook and more of a guideline. All you need is the basic architecture: a good base of chopped vegetables and browned meat, a hearty gravy, and a whipped tuber topping. I prefer a sweet potato topping over the more traditional one with russets, but both are delightful. You can also use ground lamb for a true shepherds pie, or turkey for a leaner option. Any variety of vegetables will do for the base, as long as you start with sauteed onions and garlic, and generally avoid the cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cabbage.

The key to building flavor is to make sure you sweat your savory vegetables first (onions, garlic, and carrots), and adequately brown your meat. In order to get a caramelized sear on ground meat, bring a dry, heavy-bottomed skillet up to medium-high heat until it’s VERY hot. Add the meat and let it sear until it’s dark brown and crispy before flipping it to the other side. If you’re working with a lot of meat, it’s sometimes best to do this in batches, or it will give off too much moisture in the pan to reach a good temperature. The brown bits that stick to the bottom form the base for your pan sauce.

Prick sweet potatoes with a knife to vent and microwave on high until cooked through (roughly 5 minutes). Let cool before peeling. Mash the sweet potatoes with about 4 TBS butter and milk until smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

Heat 3 TBS butter in a large, heavy-bottomed pot or dutch oven (must be oven safe) until melted. Add onions, garlic, carrots, and parsnips to sweat. Once the onions are translucent and fragrant, add chopped beets and 2 cups beef stock. Cover and cook on medium heat until cooked through.

While the vegetables are cooking, pre-heat an iron skillet to medium-high and add ground beef and pork to brown. Let the meat sear until crispy and brown before flipping. When the meat is cooked through, remove it from the pan and set aside.

Drain off most of the liquid in the pan (if you’re using grass-fed beef, there might not be any!). Decrease heat to medium-low and add 3 TBS butter. Scrape and stir the browned bits on the bottom of the pan with the butter. Add dried thyme. Whisk in the flour until well incorporated. When the mixture bubbles, whisk in 1 cup beef broth (more, if needed) to form a thick sauce. If it seizes, don’t panic. Just add more liquid and whisk vigorously. Stir in the wine and tomato sauce and let cook until it’s the consistency of gravy.

Once the veggies are fork tender, remove the lid from the dutch oven and let some of the cooking liquid reduce. Add cooked meat and gravy. Top with mashed sweet potato to cover.

Place under a low broil for 10-15 minutes, or until the peaks on the potatoes start to brown. Serve with crusty bread.

Like many people with eastern European Ancestry, I have a stuffed cabbage roll recipe that’s been passed down through the matriarchy for more than a century. I had to wait until my daughter was born before my husband’s Hungarian grandmother shared her family recipe with me. She cooks hers like a soup, slow-simmered on the stovetop in a pressure-cooker.

The humble cabbage roll has been a staple of Jewish cooking for over 2,000 years, and its proliferation through Europe and Asia is evident in the diversity of cuisine-specific variations. In Syria, the meat is spiced with cinnamon. In Romania, lots and lots of garlic. I’ve even stumbled upon a Persian recipe that calls for dill. My recipe is a hodge-podge of various cuisines, mostly informed by my family’s ethnic miscellany. I like a combination of ground beef and pork, and I sweeten my tomato sauce just slightly. Sometimes I take a cue from my husband’s side of the family and add sweet paprika. The possibilities are endless.

I used Pak Choi for this recipe because the large leafy greens have a milder taste than traditional cabbage, but still hold up to the blanching and rolling process. Also, a good bunch of pak choi will have more of the large outer leaves (better for rolling) than a head of cabbage, so it goes farther! I’ve used collards, kale, and even bok choi in the past; any large, leafy green will do. Use the large outer leaves for rolling, and keep any smaller leaves as “band aids” for the holes or tears in the larger leaves.

Set a large pot of water to boil over high heat while you prepare the filling. Wash and peel the greens, keeping stems intact.

Melt butter or olive oil in a skillet over medium heat and add onions and garlic to sweat. Once they’re translucent and fragrant, set aside to cool.

To make the sauce, combine half the sauteed onion and garlic mixture in a large mixing bowl with the chopped tomatoes, tomato sauce, vinegar, brown sugar, and raisins. Season with salt and pepper and stir to combine. Add one cup sauce to the bottom of a large pyrex baking dish and set aside while you make your rolls.

Combine ground beef, sausage, eggs, rice, and half the sauteed garlic and onions in a large bowl and mix with your hands to combine. Season with salt and pepper.

Once the water comes to a rolling boil, prepare an ice bath in a large bowl. Blanch the greens in the boiling water a few at a time for 5-10 seconds. I use the long stems as handles, dunking only the leafy parts. Remove from boiling water, dunk in the ice bath, and set aside. Repeat for all the leaves.

On a large working surface, make your rolls. Spread a wilted leaf out on your working surface and use a sharp knife to cut the thick stem off the bottom of the leaf, cutting up in a V-shape if necessary to remove the thickest parts. Add a spoonful of the meat mixture to the bottom of the leaf. Bring the v-shaped incision together underneath the meat if needed as you roll, wrapping the leaf around the meat in a tight roll, tucking in the sides mid-way up (like you’re rolling a tiny burrito). Place the rolls seam side down in the pre-sauced baking dish. Continue with remaining leaves.

Once all the rolls have been assembled and arranged in the baking dish, top with remaining sauce and cover lightly with foil. Bake for 2 hours. Serve with mashed potatoes, rice, or corn grits.

Kale is one of those cold-hearty greens that keeps growing year-round; its flavor is often improved by a quick frost. I prefer heftier salads in the colder months, and this recipe is a great way to incorporate fresh kale into your salad routine. I've had few friends mention their hesitancy to eat raw kale, and to them I say, “well have you tried it with BACON?”

The lemon-yogurt dressing is a utilitarian wonder, and this recipe will make about double what you actually need for 4 servings. You won’t have any trouble eating the rest, I assure you; it keeps well in the fridge and makes a great sandwich spread, dip for vegetables, or (as I discovered), potato chips. You’re welcome.

If you don’t have preserved lemon, substitute the zest and juice of a large fresh lemon, and halve the vinegar. For the health-conscious among us (or those that dislike mayonnaise), double the yogurt and kiss the mayonnaise goodbye. You might not even miss it.

To make dressing, mix preserved lemon, mayonnaise, and yogurt in a small food processor until smooth. Slowly add the vinegar until combined. Add salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate dressing until ready to use (dressing can be made a few days ahead).

Fry bacon in a large, heavy-bottomed skillet until very crispy but not burned. Remove to a paper towel-lined plate and let cool. Crumble cooled bacon in the paper towels or remove to a cutting board to chop coarsely.

Slice tomatoes in half and set aside for salad prep.

Remove tough stems from washed kale and tear into bite-sized pieces. Add kale to a large mixing bowl with two large dollops of dressing and toss to combine, adding more dressing as necessary. Don’t overdress, there should be very little excess dressing in the bottom of the bowl.

Plate kale into 4 large servings and let rest for 5 minutes before adding bacon and tomatoes to serve.